A business was saved after a pedestrian passing the building rang the boss to say: 'Hello, it is raining – in your office.'

The kind Samaritan stopped and stared in horror through the window of design firm Taylor James as torrents of water gushed from the ceiling, soaking the ground floor.

The drama was captured on CCTV footage on cameras both inside and outside the premises in Shoreditch, east London.

Scroll down to watch the video

The water started running down the door and flooding the entrance before it was noticed

A passer-by glances in and notices the water, which by now is dripping from the centre of the ceiling too

Pouring down: CCTV footage shows water pouring through the ceiling on to the ground floor of design firm Taylor James in Shoreditch, east London

Onlookers: Pedestrians walking past the business notice the water

Good Samaritan: A woman in a grey coat, pictured right, calls the company director to let him know 'it's raining in your office'

And now the video has been uploaded to Facebook and YouTube – prompting a flood of amused comments.

Company director Glen Taylor was working on the second floor of the building while 10 members of the staff were at their desks on the first, when he received a frantic call alerting him to the problem.

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He said: 'It was a young woman who just kept saying, it’s raining, it’s raining. I looked out the window and it wasn’t so it was all very confusing.

'Finally she blurted out that it was raining inside. I thought it was some mad prank so I sent a colleague to investigate.'

Shocked: Distressed members of staff then come down to the ground floor to discover it is covered in ankle-deep water

The clear-up begins: Several members of staff get to work on the leak and then start cleaning up

Damage: The flood caused an estimated £10,000 worth of damage but it could have caused much more if it hadn't been spotted so quickly

The CCTV cameras picture the
member of the staff discovering the reception area at the front of the
premises ankle-deep in water and dashing off to get help.

Moments later, dozens of his co-workers descend, looking baffled. They dither for a moment while one captures the scene on his mobile phone camera.

Finally the water is switched off and the clean up begins.

The
video of the disaster, set to the soundtrack Raindrops Keep Falling on
My Head by BJ Thomas, shows staff desperately moving furniture,
collecting water in plastic buckets, mopping, sweeping and using a huge
fan to try and dry out the floor.

Mr
Taylor, who has helped bring to life advertising campaigns for Disney,
American Express, Infinity and FedEx, said: 'Our company deals with
creating solutions to other people’s problems.

Mopping up: Once the water was switched off the cleaning could begin - all caught on CCTV

Thanks to the intervention from the pedestrian, the damage was kept to a minimum

By now the door has been opened and the workers and the clear-up operation is well underway

'As you can see from the video, it took us seven minutes and 32 seconds to solve this particular problem which has got to be a company record.'

The crisis was caused when a hot water pipe burst in the ceiling.

Mr Taylor said: 'To coin a well known phrase, we really were "in hot water". There was a lot of open mouths and swearing but generally speaking it was a good example of team work.'

The flood has caused an estimated £10,000 worth of damage but Mr Taylor said it could have been worse.

'Thanks to the kind lady who called to tell us it was raining inside, we managed to fix things fast,' he said.